It should be obvious to everyone at this point that humans are having an enormous impact on the planet. But how much, exactly, does our collective footprint weigh? It may sound odd, but a new scientific paper is offering an answer to that very question: a staggering 30 trillion tons.

At an auction held earlier today in the United Kingdom, a 95-percent-complete skeleton of an extinct dodo bird that was painstakingly assembled over the course of 40 years has sold to an unnamed private collector for a whopping $430,000.

An exquisitely preserved fossil found in China still contains the original biological compounds that gave a 130-million-year-old bird its shading and color. The find extends the timeframe in which scientists thought these substances can be preserved.

Behold Tongtianlong, a new species of oviraptor uncovered in China. The fossilized remains of this feathered, bird-like dinosaur were preserved with its limbs outstretched, and its head raised—suggesting it was hopelessly stuck in a patch of mud, where it eventually died.

Introducing Savannasaurus, a gigantic long-neck dinosaur that lived during the Cretaceous period some 100 million years ago. Its discovery sheds new light on sauropod evolution as well as how these impressive beasts managed to conquer the globe.

By combining archaeological, paleontological, and genetic evidence, an international team of researchers has identified a previously unknown hybrid species that contains both bison and cattle DNA. The discovery solves a longstanding mystery about the origins of modern European bison.

Do not be alarmed by this heavily armed, parasitic wasp that bears no close relationship to any other organism, and is such a badass that it apparently traded flying for leaping like a grasshopper. Mercifully, Aptenoperissus burmanicus went extinct a long time ago.

Researchers working in Africa have uncovered 3.8 million-year-old protein fragments encased in an ostrich eggshell. These biological building blocks are millions of years older than the oldest DNA ever found, highlighting the possibility of recovering ancient proteins from extinct animals—and even the remains of early…

Marine archaeologists have found the partial remains of a 2,000-year-old skeleton while conducting an excavation at the Antikythera shipwreck, the famous site that yielded the freakishly-advanced Antikythera Mechanism. Incredibly, the ancient remains could still contain traces of DNA.

Paleontologists working on an island off the coast of California’s Ventura County have discovered a strange mammoth skull that exhibits features never seen before in the extinct elephantine creatures. Not too big and not too small, this skull could represent a transitional species.

Researchers from Bristol University have reconstructed the color patterns of a Cretaceous-era Psittacosaurus, revealing not just its colors and distinct shading patterns, but also clues about the life and environment in which this extinct dinosaur lived.

The sixth mass extinction—the one that seven billion humans are doing their darnedest to trigger at this very moment—is shaping up to be like nothing our planet has ever seen. That’s the conclusion of a sweeping new analysis, which compared marine fossil records from Earth’s five previous mass extinction events to…

Researchers working in Greenland have found traces of microbial life in our planet’s most ancient rocks. The discovery pushes back the oldest evidence of life on Earth by about 220 million years, showing just how habitable our planet was during its earliest stages.

Introducing Allkauren koi, a ridiculously looking flying reptile with a very cool name. The fossilized remains of this newly discovered pterosaur were discovered in the Patagonia region of South America, and it’s shedding light on the origin and evolution of these ancient creatures.

In the murky waters of the Ganges and Indus rivers, a few thousand blind dolphins swim on their sides, snapping at prey with long, exaggerated beaks and using echolocation to navigate. Because of pollution and habitat destruction, the South Asian river dolphin is on its way to extinction—but a newly-discovered…

Archaeologists have discovered a treasure trove of ancient stone tools at a dig near Azraq, Jordan, some of which still contain traces of animal residue. A number of food items on this bona fide paleolithic menu will be familiar to the modern eater, while others, well, not so much.